Checkmate. No acceptable counter to that. I nodded, properly chastened. He was right, of course. What kind of mother couldn’t take care of her own children?
“No nanny,” Caleb repeated. Then my husband’s expression softened, and he also placed a hand on the counter, as if to steady himself, and I realized he was exhausted too. Giving himself a moment to recover from his own constant performance—not of the role I had thought he would take on (hello, cowboy!), but of something much subtler and therefore more demanding: that of a hardened Christian man. He didn’t play with the children anymore, not in the same way he used to. Sometimes I caught him looking at them wistfully, especially toddler Stetson or baby Jessa, but he never actually actedon his longing anymore. He couldn’t. Real men didn’t do things like that. “We can have a full-time babysitter, I think,” he said tiredly, rubbing one eye. “Babysitters are fine.”
Clementine was standing by the baking dish now, quietly eating a roasted carrot. I crossed the room toward my husband and wrapped my arms around him. Our first hug in years. Then I began to cry.
The woman in the videos, with her flipbook of smiles? That was Online Natalie, and she was designed to be good at being alive. Nothing was hard for her: not motherhood, nor marriage, nor building a business, nor serving Him. All of it appeared to her as a series of tasks to be accomplished each day, at the right time, in the correct chronological order.
Online Natalie started each morning by giving thanks for all the Lord had given her. She greeted her children lovingly each morning. She had sex with her husband every night. She was tired all the time, but it never made her ugly or angry or bitter. It only ever made her more beautiful.
And she was right there, wasn’t she? Standing, smiling, beckoning. Any day now, I would wrap my fingers around her neck and pull her forward. Let her topple into me.
37
The last few dayshave been very peaceful on the ranch. Mary’s mood has improved. Abel seemed to enjoy his trip with Old Caleb, and has left with him several times since then. On the first day, he came back grinning and told Noah,I’ll tell you when you’re old enough.Now Noah walks around all day with a dazed, slightly ecstatic look in his eye, like he knows the day of his own death.
And me? I think the Lord is happy with me. I can feel Him all around me, stronger than I ever have in my life. Sometimes, when I’m doing laundry or getting eggs from the coop, I tilt my expression to catch the cold winter sunlight, and I swear I can feel His breath on my cheek.
When I was a girl, I thought of the Lord the way other girls in my class thought of crushes. I imagined the lines of His face each night when I fell asleep. I doodled His name in my notebook in cursive, swirling hearts in glitter gel pen pink. I wondered if He thought of me as frequently as I thought of Him. And sometimes—as a reward, I think, for such pure thoughts—He would enter my body, filling me with an unbearable pleasure, a sense of communion so deep and animal and satiating that it left me slick and panting upon its departure.
I stopped experiencing those moments the day I was married. But now, miracle of miracles: the feeling has returned. I feel Him everywhere. In the air. In the ground beneath my feet. I feel Him,too, on the evenings Old Caleb reaches for my hips beneath the quilt. Pleasure beyond imagining. Like I am in a constant state of ascending.
For the first time in my life, I am being properly satisfied by a man.
I’m not alone. I’m not stuck, not lost, not forgotten, not punished. I am here, a chosen one, with Him, and I will remain here, whereverhereis, until He decides to take me elsewhere.
Sometimes, when I have a moment to myself, I drop to my knees and let the gratitude hum out of me in waves. I cry hysterically, overcome by the magnitude of His power and His glory.
Imagine how you would feel if the Lord created a whole universe just for you. A customized parable; a new biblical story in the making. Maybe one day, even, they’ll talk about me in Sunday School. Saint Natalie. I like the ring of that.
The days slip away from me. A blur of divine exhaustion. Another week passes, and then another. The temperature drops further. Dinner comes earlier. We are crowded around the fire by midevening each night. Mary takes Old Caleb’s most worn-out pairs of socks, the ones that have become so thin at the toes that no amount of restitching will save them, and she turns them into a new pair of sock puppets for Maeve, with mismatched button eyes. Maeve has two puppets already. She’s been begging Mary for a third pair of puppets. Mary tells her to be patient, and Maeve, a good little girl, usually manages to quiet herself for a good thirty minutes before she comes sidling back up to the table, eyeing Mary’s handiwork with an interest verging on desperation. Finally Mary finishes and gives Maeve the third pair, and Maeve is so excited by the gift that she becomes overwhelmed and cries fat little-girl tears. It’s such a startlingly adorable scene that I begin to laugh, and amid all the joy I think to myself,Yes, I can bear this life. I can even sometimes enjoy it.
And then, just as quickly, I’m thinking of my other children—the ones who are out there, somewhere, in this life, in another life— and the laughter dies in my chest. The girls notice the change intemperature and back away immediately. The boys eye me warily from across the room, and I spend the rest of the night staring moodily at nothing.
Then one morning, I wake up and realize two things simultaneously: it’s been almost two months since Old Caleb slapped me that cold dark morning, and I haven’t gotten my period.
38
Louise Crenshaw arrivedat the farm on a blustery spring morning wearing a peacoat, holding an old-fashioned suitcase in one hand. I was thrilled with how perfectly she fit the aesthetic of the role she needed to fill.Our very own Mary Poppins!“Hello there,” she said to Clementine, and stuck out her hand.
We were standing in the corner of the living room where the children kept their toys. “Hello there,” Clementine echoed, and shook Louise’s hand. She gestured formally at her doll set. “Would you like to have tea with me?”
Nanny Louise nodded. “Absolutely I would.”
She dropped down to a crouch, letting the children gather around her like townspeople encountering a stranger from a foreign land.
“So,” she said, while Samuel surveyed her, nose to nose, with an appraising look.Hard to believe my oldest boy is nearly four!“My agency says you’re an influencer?”
I laughed brightly. “Sort of. I don’tthinkof myself like one, but I guess it’s technically true.”
She poked Samuel in the tummy, and he burst into hysterics. Stetson now toddled over and presentedhistummy to her.Hard to believe my youngest boy isnearly—wait, no, I had used that line already. Well: Stetson was two. She poked his tummy, and both boys screamed with terrified delight. Over their laughter, she said, “What do you sell?”
“Well, up until now it’s just been paid advertisements, but I’m planning a cookware line. Mixing bowls, cutting boards, preserved foods. That kind of thing. Direct to consumer.Somuch work to plan.”
I gave a self-deprecating grimace and held the expression in place, patiently, until she turned around and looked at me. Then my face morphed into bright laughter again, and she laughed politely too.
It was working. My first extended interaction with a stranger since that awful day with the woman in the parking lot—and this time I was actually doing it. Being Online Natalie in real life. Nanny Louise didn’t exactly seemthrilledby me, but that was irrelevant. I didn’t care if she liked me. I just cared if she believed I was real.
“Well,” I said. “I’ll just let you get to it, then!” Best to leave when ahead. “Oh, and what’s your Instagram handle? I’d love to follow you!”
